Space Probe Gets Halfway to Pluto in Record Time

Posted by Raymond on December 30, 2009

From Wired:

The fastest man-made object ever built, the Pluto-bound New Horizons probe, is now closer to the former planet than Earth, just a little under four years after its launch.

It’s currently traveling at about 31,000 miles an hour and is located about 1.527 billion miles from Earth.

“Today, 29 Dec 2009, New Horizons crossed a milestone boundary– henceforth we’re now closer to Pluto than to Earth. Go New Horizons!” the mission’s controllers tweeted Tuesday.

The spacecraft will be the first to flyby Pluto, the planet or dwarf planet or plutoid, and on to the other objects lurking in the Kuiper Belt at the edge of the solar system.

While the craft is hibernating most of the time while it awaits its July 2015 rendezvous with Pluto, it was roused for a Jupiter flyby that yielded some gorgeously detailed images of that planet and its satellites.

Unlike an orbiter, much of the New Horizons action will come in an action-packed nine day period around July 14, 2015 when the craft approaches and then passe by Pluto. During that time, the probe will capture 4.5 gigabytes of data, which it will have to keep sending the four-and-a-half hours back home for months.

[Read more at Wired]